Hiking Inca Trail in Peru: 19mm Prime or 14-42 Zoom?

You're getting a lot of good advice about having the 12mm available for landscapes.  However, if it's not in your budget to upgrade your lenses, than you might try to do some stitching.  What's nice about mountain landscapes is that they don't move, so stitching is pretty simple.  Your 14-42 will work just fine since you really don't want to use the wide end for this kind of process.  Here's my technique:

- Set your camera to manual and expose for the brightest part of the landscape you're trying to capture.  Depending on the software you're using, it's also a good idea to set the white balance manually.

- I prefer to take my shots in portrait mode at around 20mm.  Using the wider end of the zoom can produce distortion (depending on the lens/body) which can cause problems for stitching software.

- Try to avoid any large objects in the immediate foreground.  Unless you have a tripod with a specialized pano head, these objects can give you problems when stitching.

- Take a series of shots either left to right or right to left.  Try to keep the horizon as level as possible and overlap your shots around 25%.  Keep your body in the same position and simple rotate.

-  Remember to set your camera back to your preferred settings (this is the mistake I make most frequently!)

You can then stitch using any number of software products.  I happen to use Photoshop Elements, although I've also used Microsoft ICE (free) with good results.   I know this sounds complicated, but after you done it once or twice it's actually very simple and produces reliably good results.

Here's an example comprised of 7 or 8 shots and taken with my kit lens on an EPL1:

Punakha Dzong, Bhutan

Have a great trip ...